Sunday Mornings with Mulder and Scully – Agua Mala

In Spanish, Agua Mala means ‘bad water’. It is also a slang name for a Portuguese Man o’ War. Those venomous jellyfish that are prone to come in close to shore and close beaches due to safety issues. That happened when I was in Hawaii in 2009. We were driving the Road to Hana and came to Wai anapanapa beach with its black sand and waves crashing against rocks. Signs posted that day told everyone to stay out of the water because of jellyfish called Man o’ War. That jellyfish is much like the creature in today’s episode.

Arthor Dales returns to the series in a creature feature episode that ranks among my favorites of the series. Mulder had met him, a retired FBI agent, earlier in the series when Mulder was investigating an X-File. The character also returns later in season six in the episode The Unnatural, but actor Darren McGavin had a stroke between the two episodes so he was replaced with M. Emmet Walsh in the last episode that featured the character. In the episode Aqua Mala, Dales contacts Mulder when he suspects foul play with the disappearance of a family in his Florida trailer park. A hurricane is approaching which causes Mulder and Scully to take shelter in a building with other people. And there is something in the water attacking people.

Before they are trapped in that building, Mulder and Scully visit the home of the Shipley family who had disappeared as the hurricane was making landfall. While they are checking a barricaded bedroom, a local deputy named Greer thinks they are buglers until Scully shows their ID. Deputy Greer ends up at a condominium and encounters a creature and a dead man covered in clear slime. Mulder and Scully later find the man at the condominiums as he has been attacked by the creature. Red marks on his neck indicate he was strangled by something with tentacles.

The rest of the building’s inhabitants include a looter named Dougie, a pregnant woman named Angela, and an anti-government gun rights activist named George. These residents, George especially, is not up for being helped by government officials when Mulder and Scully try to warn them that something dangerous is in the plumbing. George pays for this by getting attacked in his apartment and he finally comes out.

Somehow, it made sense that the deputy soak in a bath after Scully removed some suspicious material from the wounds on his neck. Dougie steals the wedding ring right off of the deputy’s finder and accidentally knocks over Epsom salt into the tub. Then Angela needs to use the toilet and notices the creature in the tub. She gets Mulder and Scully who find the deputy missing but his clothing remains. Mulder ascertains that the creature isn’t just living in the water but is a living form of water and that the specimens that Scully found in the Deputy’s neck were eggs using the man’s water content in his body to grow.

Mulder, in one of his run without thinking moments, demands everyone evacuate and runs into the hallway where he is attacked by the creature. George takes this opportunity to take everyone hostage for whatever reason and Angela goes into labor meaning Scully must deliver her baby. Water collecting in a light fixture becomes the place where the creature enters the space and it attacks. Scully realizes that the deputy was attacked only after Epsom salt was poured into the tub and tells the person with the gun to shoot the sprinklers to release fresh water. Mulder realizes the same thing out in the hallway and runs out into the rain to clean his wounds. The next day when they regale Arthor Dales with the tale of the events they encountered, he tells Scully that if he had a partner like her when he was investigating the X-Files for the FBI he wouldn’t have retired. He offers them some water to which the agents both respond with, “No!”

What is so striking about Aqua Mala is that, compared to most of the other episodes filmed in that first season shot in sunny Los Angelos, this episode is really dark. Since they were stuck inside a building during a hurricane, it also required a lot of water. Gillian Anderson reportedly joked that it was like being back in Vancouver. Several episodes during the first five seasons were either delayed or the crew forced to shoot differently because of rain. While there are better creature features in the series, I’ll admit to enjoying this episode for what it is. Scully realizing fresh water would kill the creature was a quick assumption made because of time constraints – at least that’s the excuse I’m using for this episode. And I’m not sure it needed the Arthor Dales connection. I think it would have been stronger if it had just been Mulder and Scully investigating a string of disappearances as a hurricane came ashore.

This episode has all the elements of a great creature feature even if it doesn’t fully succeed. A disastrous event. A mysterious creature from the depths of the ocean. A group of people who wouldn’t otherwise associate with each other are trapped together for survival. A scientist to figure out what is happening. Shades of the short lived series Invasion circa 2005. I’ve always thought that The X-Files walked so that shows like Invasion could run even if it was only for one season and ended on a cliffhanger. It also made me want to rewatch Fringe, another series that succeeded largely because it was so great at filling the void that The X-Files left when it finally ended. Many of its episodes revolved around investigating a mysterious illness or event that required sciencing their way out of it to solve the episode.

Watching this episode play out made me want to rewatch a couple different movies. First is the 2019 Irish creature feature Sea Fever starring Dougray Scott and Connie Nielsen. A scientist researching microbes goes onto a fishing vessel that ventures into an area of the ocean that has been quarantined to fish. A mysterious squid like creature attacks them and contact with the creature means a very painful death after it infects you. It too features a small space populated by people who probably shouldn’t be around each other in a stressful situation. The second is Crawl circa 2019. I thought of this one mainly because of the location and the hurricane that the film is set during. Finally, The Beach House starring Lianna Liberto shows what happens when a strange fog comes ashore, bringing with it infectious microbes that infect those who come into contact with it. Also from 2019, which is an odd coincidence. Apparently that year was year of the creature feature.

Until next week, the truth is out there. Again. And again. And again. Because next week’s episode is the one where Mulder relives the same day over and over.